


the emanation of grief

by spycaptain



Category: Naruto, Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: when roleplay aus consume your soul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 13:03:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6470968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spycaptain/pseuds/spycaptain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anko’s heart is tight in her chest, beat rapid, and her fingers scrape and claw at the bench for something to dig into. There is grief here, surrounding, suffocating in the open ocean air, stuck in the mist that lands on her lips, smothering in the heavy taste of sea on her tongue.</p><p>The sea tastes like grief; in the salt of the ocean, and in the salt of her tears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the emanation of grief

**Author's Note:**

> Pacific Rim AU with tenebrisforibus on tumblr and myself. We needed an excuse four our muses to interact, and this AU came from it. And then emotions came from that. Awful, awful emotions.

_the emanation of grief._

**  
**There’s a small lighthouse on the edge of the main drag, where the land dips off into the ocean, and the island ends. Anko goes there the first day she visits home. **  
**

It’s not like she remembers it, which she supposes she should have expected. The disappointment sinks in heavy regardless, like an anvil on her chest, or a weight wrapped around her heart.

Anko leans against the railing, her feet propped in between the posts of the fence, up on her tiptoes to see what’s left of her childhood. There’s just a disconnected portion of land now, where the little lighthouse sits no more. The cement remnants of the building are all that can be seen from across the way.

Kaiju, she thinks, destroy everything. They destroy the organic, and then the flimsy bonds between all things; they ripped Madara from Tobirama’s mind, left his head half-void, and they ripped her family from her, leaving her with only an empty hearth to call home.

There’s nothing but the smell of wet grass and the misting rain on her skin, so she steps down. Maybe tomorrow she’ll come back and find what she’s looking for; if not at the lighthouse, then on the docks, and if not on the docks, then maybe in the shops, or in the faces of other survivors.

Anko walks to the hotel. The rain is heavy, and by the time she makes it there, she is thoroughly soaked.

* * *

 

Before sleep, she skims her phone. There is a text from Tobirama wishing her good luck (he’s so nosey), and one from Gottlieb, with a coupon to an ice cream shop nearby (they’re both so nosey.)

* * *

 

Anko steps across the patio - past the benches and landmark signs - to the railing that she quickly climbs over. She leaves her bags on the other side, and takes off her shoes and socks. Her bare feet are wet in the grass, and when she reaches the ledge, she lets her little toes teeter over .

The lighthouse stands behind her, bright and red, with handprints and rainbow colors painted on by the children in her neighborhood.

There’s a sign beside it, ‘THERE IS HOPE MAKE THE CALL,’ and she wonders if childhood is something most people look back on as a hopeless thing.

Her toes curl around the edge of the earth, cold from the ocean breeze; she looks down into the water and sees them: her mother, father, and sister, standing in the waves, looking up at her.

This is her grief. They rest beneath her in the ocean, and she stands above them on land. They are separate from her now, unless she makes the choice to join them.

Anko takes a step back, away, but stumbles, and slips down to the ocean, screaming.

* * *

 

She blinks awake, and moves to grab her phone. One missed call, from Tobirama: “ _What exactly are you doing?_ ”

He is just impatient and worried, like an old, grumpy cat, upset with change and the sudden wave of unpredicted things. She deletes the message and rolls out of bed.

She goes to the docks, rebuilt since the attack, and eats her ice cream on a damp wooden bench. It’s quiet, and she likes it that way. It gives her a chance to filter her thoughts - to take the memory of her sister and her in the sand, building castles, and recatalog it next to her new memory of the chasm beneath her feet.

(Her sister’s body is beneath her feet.)

Anko’s heart is tight in her chest, beat rapid, and her fingers scrape and claw at the bench for something to dig into. There is grief here, surrounding, suffocating in the open ocean air, stuck in the mist that lands on her lips, smothering in the heavy taste of sea on her tongue.

The sea tastes like grief; in the salt of the ocean, and in the salt of her tears.

* * *

 

Tobirama sends her a single text - _?_ \-  that she sees before she goes to sleep.

She knows the science of drifting, knows where they could be connected and disconnected, where the others could see and know her, and where she could sit and be private and alone.

These are her thoughts, her dreams, and her grief. No one knows them but her, but the feeling is still there: that she is transparent, easy to see through and understand. That she allowed this invasion to happen, and will never get her autonomy back.

She crawls into bed, pulls the blankets up to her chin, and buries herself in them.

Here in the hotel room she is all of these things: disconnected and private, but also just Anko, just herself.

Her phone flashes with another missed text, which she ignores.

* * *

 

“What exactly are you doing?”

Anko blinks up at Tobirama from her spot on the bench, the ice cream paused just at the tip of her tongue.

“Oh,” she says.

He looks angry in his lab coat, his arms folded across his chest. His hair is messy like it was when she last saw him, a mix of bedhead and exhaustion, and he has dark circles under his eyes.

Tobirama does not belong by the ocean, because he belongs in the lab, next to Newton and Gottlieb. He does not belong next to Anko, because she is drowning in grief, beside the graves of her family.

They’re beneath her again. Her mother’s eyes, her father’s smile, her sister’s hands gesturing wildly at her.

 _Come down_ , Kuri says, smiling, knee deep in black water.

“Come back,” Tobirama says, unhappy, alive, and behind her.

* * *

 

This time Anko wakes slowly.

She visits the memorial in the center of town.  It’s a small gallery in between shops, with recovered photos from before framed and hung across the walls. It’s simple, white and clean, and it comforts her.

In the middle of the room rests a book full of names of the dead. She stands at it, and turns the pages in search of ones she might recognize.

She stops once she’s found her family; three lines for three names, three spaces for the empty spaces in her heart.

For her, acceptance is a simple thing. It’s the click of the door as someone else enters the gallery. The closing door, her closing grief, the sound of the lock turning a finality she can’t ignore, and Anko is centered back in the world again.

* * *

 

Her last night home, she just dreams of the ocean.

There are footprints to the water, three pairs, but she sees no one. There’s a scuffle of footprints up by the docks, muddied shoes of different sizes, but she can’t find the men they belong to.

She spends hours there, alone, until she makes her decision.

Anko points to her chest, then folds her arms, before pointing out to the ocean. She feels it swell, a massive, black beast of grief, a rising tide to take her, as she steps back.

 _I love you_ , she says. _But goodbye._

* * *

 

Anko texts him when the cab pulls up to her house.

 _I’m home_ , she says, _Thank you for watering my plants :)_

 _I cannot wait for your explanation_ , Tobirama replies, _Three pages minimum, Times New Roman, size 12 font. Don’t cheat and make the periods 14._

She laughs as she pays the driver, grabs her bags, and makes her way to the front door.

He’s there, of course, a cup of water in his hand for her plants, and an unamused scowl on his lips. Bad timing on her part, perfect timing on his.

“What,” She asks, ignoring Tobirama’s stare as she pushes past him into her house.  “Can’t a girl run off on an impromptu midlife crisis?”

“Is that what it was?” He’s not impressed, so she tries a different route.

“I’m going to hug you,” Anko says as she sets her bags down. She turns to him, her arms out, a kid chasing a flighty animal. “Because I’ve had a really shitty week, and you aren’t allowed to yell at me, so I’m going to hug you to distract you from yelling at me.”

Tobirama sets the glass down and scoots away from her. “What if I have a really good yell thought out?”

“Tomorrow,” she says, and dives at him. “All the yelling.”


End file.
